Cheque of Barclay's
Bank

London, England, AD 1898

The banking history of one address in the City
of London

This simple unissued cheque tells part of the
history of a well-known British bank. The 'One
Penny' revenue stamp on the right of the cheque shows that
it was printed in 1898. This was two years after Barclays absorbed
the London bank of Goslings and Sharpe. Indeed, you can see that
the association of the two banks has been explicitly stated on the
cheque, perhaps to keep the loyalty of existing customers. Goslings
had been a long-lived bank, and since at least 1743 it had been
based at No. 19 Fleet Street, London, the address at the top of the
cheque.

In the top
left-hand corner is an attractive emblem of three bushy-tailed
squirrels. This refers to an even earlier stage of the business at
No. 19 Fleet Street. The British Museum holds a cheque issued from
No. 19 in 1725, when Mr Abraham Fowler worked as a goldsmith-banker
there. He refers to the address as the 'Signe of the Three
Squirrils'.

Mr
Fowler himself was continuing an existing business, for there had
been a goldsmith there from the middle of the seventeenth century.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), the famous English diarist, recorded a
visit to 'Mr. Pinckney the Goldsmith', who worked
at this very same address, the Sign of the Three Squirrels. Today
Barclays Bank still have a branch at 19 Fleet Street, known as the
Goslings branch.

P.W. Matthews and A.W. Tuke, History of Barclays Bank Limit (Blades, East and Blades Ltd., 1926)

J. Williams (ed.), Money: a history (London, The British Museum Press, 1997)